WAITS

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Operating system used at the Stanford AI Lab. It ran on a PDP-6, KA10, and KL10 connected together in various configurations. The name unofficially means "West-coast Alternative to ITS" (although this may be a 'backronym' - a SAIL page which discusses the meaning of the name does not mention it).

It also ran on PDP-10 clones at Stanford, manufactured by Foonly; one at CCRMA, and one at the S-1 project.

In modern times, WAITS is running on a KL10 at the Living Computers Museum, and on Richard Cornwell's KA10 emulator.

SAIL alumnus Bruce Baumgart's Saildart project has an archive of files from magnetic tapes, and documents the history of SAIL and WAITS.

Version history

Versions and events for the main WAITS track at SAIL. Offshots include CCRMA and LLL S-1 project, both running on Foonly machines.

  • The Stanford AI Lab acquired a PDP-6 in June 1966.
  • The SAIL monitor was based on an early PDP-6 Monitor from DEC.
  • The 2 series monitor had storage on DECtapes only.
  • A PDP-10 was installed September 1968.
  • The 6 series introduced the use of disk file storage.
  • The first monitor version recorded on tape is Stanford 6.09F, from 1972-10-02.
  • The last 6 series version is Stanford 6.19/B from 1975-04-14.
  • The 7 series added use of the BBN pager.
  • Stanford 7.01 dates from 1975-04-19.
  • The last 7 series version is Stanford 7.05/I/1400P from 1976-05-06.
  • The 8 series marked the port to the KL10 processor.
  • Stanford 8.00 is from 1976-06-06.
  • 1978-04-09 marks the renaming of the system with WAITS 8.70/I.
  • The last 8 series version is SU-AI WAITS 8.73/Q from 1978-12-21.
  • The 9 series monitors had the "P2 processor separate" (unclear).
  • SU-AI WAITS 9.01 is from 1978-12-30.
  • The disk system moved to RH20 and RP07 drives in 1983.
  • The ultimate version is SAIL.Stanford.EDU WAITS 9.18/M from 1990-04-26.
  • WAITS was shut down permanently on Friday 7 June 1991.

External links